Family Goes Beyond All Measures
by TheCloverhand
Summary: 25 years after Short Circuit 2, the story is being told from a different perspective- Stephanie's niece, Alaun. The whole family (and then some) come along for a little vacation in a lodge that holds a tragedy. As secrets unfold and new ones are created, Alaun tries to find her footing with her delinquent cousin, who isn't a big fan of family trips. Has the main characters and OCs.


It was that time of the year again.

Snow slowly melted away, revealing the true green underneath. It usually looks beautiful up here, snow-dusted and cozy. But I've been lost in these valleys for a long time. I look over at my mother and know she's sad somewhere in all her denial. She's being strong for two people: herself and me.

It's been nine years since we've been here.

Montana really is beautiful. But tainted, now, with everything that happened last time we were here.

"_Excuse me, miss, are you home alone?" The policeman asks me, a questioning look on his face. _

_I only have time to scrunch up my face in personal confusion before my mother rounds the hall corner and puts her hand on my shoulder. She eyes the policeman._

"_Sorry, I was doing something in the other room, officer. Is there something wrong?" My mother asks._

_I hear footsteps behind my mother and look. Jeffrey stands next to Warren, his brother in the corner of the hallway. Aunt Stephanie peeks out of the kitchen and Jeffrey and Warren's mother (Aunt Suzanne) is outside, smoking a cigarette. Johnny is outside somewhere, reading his book he got the day before. The men are out doing something in town._

"_Are you Sandra Thorley?" The policeman asks now._

_My mother's eyes goes a bit wide. Just a bit. She nods. "Yes."_

"_What about Stephanie Crosby and Suzanne Luciano?" The officer is now peeking into the house a bit. Eyeing my Aunt Stephanie at first and then looking around the rest of the room. I look up at my mother, who looks back at me, a worried look on her face. I want to ask what's going on. I have no idea why this man in the uniform is here. I've only seen of them once, when Dad was speeding on the way to the grocery store. He got away with a warning._

_My mom looks at Aunt Stephanie. Aunt Stephanie tosses the rag she was holding over her shoulder. "I'm Stephanie Crosby. I'll go get Suzanne." She looks at Jeffrey and Warren, who stare blankly back at her before leaving for the back porch._

_The policeman nods. "May I come in?"_

_My mother steps out of the way and I realize just how cold it is outside. I shiver away from the burst of cold air as the policeman steps inside. He looks at me. "What's your name, huh?"_

"_Alaun."_

"Alaun!"

I jerk my head up and look at my mom. She looks older now. Not necessarily from age, but from stress. "Try listening to me for once okay?"

I roll my eyes and turn my attention back to the road. "Oh-kay."

"We're going to be there in a few minutes. Suzanne, Warren, and Jeffrey are already there. I think Ben and Sandy are too. Be sure to give them a _nice, warm hello_."

I grimace. "If Jeffrey doesn't piss me off, that shouldn't be a problem whatsoever."

"Hey!" My mother snaps. "Language. Watch it."

"Sorry." I say and check my phone. Still no service. I didn't have a phone last time we were here. Must've been nice to not be socially attached to something. I put it back on my lap, facedown. I sigh and think for a moment, looking at the tree-ridden landscape around us. Years ago, I was driving this same road, but I was in the backseat. I would still be in the backseat if-

Wait. Stop. _Don't do this to yourself, Alaun._ I frown and cut my thoughts off completely by asking, "What are we going to do while we're here?"

"Well, there's a few wilderness hikes…" My mother's voice trailed off and I found her looking at me with a displeased look on her face.

"What?" I reply.

"Would you be up for that?" She asks me, glancing over my thin jacket and slip on shoes.

I scoff. "I marched three miles in the middle of August. I can handle a walk in the cold woods." I shake my head, a half-smile on my face, and look out the window.

My mother flicks on the right turn signal and I suddenly remember that that's it. This is the turn to the lodge. I can just barely see the white building through the trees.

"You know, sometimes you look exactly like your father."

_Oh Mom._

I look over at her, frowning. "Mom, please."

She looks at me, smiles in a sad way. She looks back to the road and turns right again, right onto the lodge's massive driveway.

I take a deep breath and sink lower in my seat. I was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that I just wasn't ready to be back here. Not even if it was nine years later.

"We're here!" My mother shouts from the driver side, waving frantically. I look for who she's waving for and my eye catches my Aunt Suzanne stepping outside the lodge, Warren and Jeffrey close behind. Warren and Aunt Suzanne wave back in a genuinely happy way. Jeffrey sulks behind them, watching our car carefully park. I wave back half-heartedly, caught up in Jeffrey's expression. _He could at least try to look happy. _ He looks behind himself and says something. Then he moves out of the way.

And there he is.

I open my mouth in shock and look at my mom, who is already looking at me with the widest of smiles on her face. "Johnny's here?" I exclaim.

"Mhm!"

My mouth hung open in surprise. "OhmyGod. I haven't seen him since my 14th birthday." I looked back to the gold-plated robot. He was waving, too. I waved back. As soon as the car came to a complete stop, I opened my door and jumped out of the cab of the car. "Hey!" I yelled as I ran across the yard.

Warren ran off the porch after me and met me halfway. He grabbed me up and slung me over his shoulder. "Warren-what the hell are you doing?" I scream as he begins running around the lodge.

"Torturing you. Obviously." He stated.

"Language!" I heard my mother shout at me.

"Warren, put me down!" I shout. He isn't carrying me in the most comfortable way either. I keep jerking up and down every time he takes a step.

He stops, catching his breath. I heard metal scrape against metal and I know he's opening the back gate. "Jesus, it's been a year hasn't it? You got taller, right?" He says and begins jogging again.

"Yeah, and you turned into more of an ass." I say in a sarcastic tone.

He laughs and says, "No, you've got me confused with my brother now. And you'll never believe what I found this morning."

I sigh. "Warren, please just put me down. This hurts."

He stops again and sighs. "All right. If that's what you want." I feel him begin to tug me off his shoulder and into his arms.

What's going on?

"Warren. Warren. Warren, stop. What are you-?" I start.

He tosses me out of his grip and I fall to the ground.

And into a snowbank.

"A big ol' pile of snow!" Warren states, laughing over me.

I gasp as snow connects with the back of my neck and hands. It's so cold, and the snow is already starting to creep into my jacket. I want to get up, but I'm so shocked by the chill that it takes me a minute to catch my own breath. "Sh-shit." I finally manage to say.

Warren laughs again and holds out his hand. I ignore it and roll onto my hands and knees. "Oh my God, why?" I say, pushing myself up.

"Why not?" he says.

I look up and notice how much he looks like his dad now. Blonde hair, blue eyes, prominent facial features. He even has the perpetual tan skin his dad had. Jeffrey is the exact opposite, and took after Aunt Suzanne. He had pale skin, dark eyes and hair, and a baby-face. I had the same dark hair, and the same features as my mom (who wasn't as baby-faced as Aunt Suzanne; she looked a lot more like Aunt Stephanie), but I also had my dad's lightly tanned skin and deep green eyes. I was also abnormally tall, almost as tall as 6"2' Warren.

I remember what Mom told me in the car and my face falls.

Warren looks concerned now and helps me up, "Hey, what's wrong?"

I take a deep breath and look around at the backyard. I don't want to be sad right now. If I get sad, I'll cry. And I hate crying more than anything else. "Nothing. I'm fine. What's Johnny doing here?"

He smirks and we begin heading towards the back door. "Well this _is _a family outing." We start walking up the steps . "Of course, Dad still didn't want to go."

I raise my eyebrows. Warren and Jeffrey's dad (they named Warren after him, but he always told us to call him Uncle U to avoid any confusion) divorced Aunt Suzanne last year. They didn't hate each other from what I'd heard about the whole situation.

"Things just aren't the same for them anymore." My mother told me.

But he still did things with Warren and Jeffrey with Aunt Suzanne. Although that was more for Jeffrey than anything. Jeffrey is the same age as me, but a bit older (we're 16). Warren is 19 and already experiencing his first year of college.

And he was never arrested for vandalism.

Mom gave me quite the lecture after all of that went down, even though I barely go out. Disrespect is wrong, I get it. But because Jeffrey apparently didn't get the memo, I was supposed to have it drilled in my head for a month straight.

"Why not?"

Warren pauses, his hand on the handle of the back door. We can hear voices inside, muffled laughter and stories just barely escaping to the outside. "Jeffrey… Jeffrey tried to steal from Dad."

"What?" I demand. I knew that Jeffrey wasn't exactly happy and had his moments but that? I never thought he'd stoop so low. "Nuh-uh."

"Yeah, he stayed the night there over there last weekend. They got home from picking him up and got into a fight. So as soon as Dad leaves the room, Jeffrey starts going through his wallet. Dad walks in because he wants to apologize-he hates fighting with us more than anything- and sees Jeffrey with a handful of money, about to pocket it."

I couldn't help but laugh a bit. "Did he seriously think he was going to get away with it?"

Warren shrugs. "I don't know. But it's cold. Let's head in." And with that he opens the door and we're immediately greeted.

"Finally, you guys decide to socialize." Aunt Suzanne grins.

I raise my hand up slightly, smiling sheepishly, "Hey, I'm an introvert remember?"

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Warren teases, tossing my hair over the top of my head.

"_Ha._ Where's Ben and Sandy?" I ask.

"Upstairs, unpacking. Steph and Newton are going to be here around ten. Fred isn't getting here until tomorrow though." My mom answers. There's relief in her voice when she says the last sentence.

"Fred's going to be here too?" Warren says in disbelief.

Honestly, I couldn't believe it either. I'd always heard stories about Fred and only met him once, more than 7 years ago, and he sounded arrogant. He never wanted to go on these 'outings' with everyone and always went somewhere else by himself instead.

My mother rolled her eyes and sighed, "Yup."

"Oh, Sandra don't be like that." Aunt Suzanne laughed. "We used to have a lot of fun back in the day with everybody."

"Yeah, back in the day. I have a kid now. And so do you." My mother told her.

Aunt Suzanne turned around to face Jeffrey, who stood in the doorway of the kitchen. "Speaking of which, my other child needs to unpack." She raises her eyebrows at him, expectantly. "Go get it done, Jeffrey."

Jeffrey pushes himself off the doorway. "You could at least call me Jeff." He mutters.

"You could at least give me a break on the attitude, young man." Aunt Suzanne tells him as he heads towards the front of the house.

As soon as I know he's out of earshot I say, "Since when is he Jeff?"

Warren crosses his arms. "Since I left for college. He likes to think he's a badass."

"The only thing that's badass about him is his grounding." Now Aunt Suzanne turns to my mom. "No MP3, no laptop, no internet, and I got him a little prepaid phone that he can only use to call me. Oh, and no junk food. I'm so fed up, Sandra."

"Hmph. Wonder what would happen if I did that every time Alaun didn't clean her room." My mom looks at me, waiting for my response.

"That's just wrong." I tell her. "I'll runaway and you'll never see me again. That's how wrong it is."

My mother laughs and starts to walk out of the room. "Don't forget to get your stuff out of the car!"

"Okay!" I tell her and turn to Warren, who's looking around.

"Where's Johnny, Mom?" he asks Aunt Suzanne.

Aunt Suzanne points upstairs. "Getting his stuff together. Fred's rooming with him, so he wants to organize everything while he can."

I look at Warren, "Wanna go bug him?"

Warren smiles "What about your stuff?"

"It'll only be for a minute." I reply. "C'mon."


End file.
